TOMRA Recycling and Indorama Ventures collaborate to improve recycling in Mexico

The recycling sector in Mexico is witnessing the collaboration of TOMRA Recycling and Indorama Ventures that aims to enable greater sustainability and environmentally friendly production and consumption.

Both companies seek to promote the future of plastics recycling in Mexico by producing recycled plastic of the highest quality. In 2014, Indorama Ventures, a global chemical producer, acquired the PET recycling Plant, located in Zapopan, Jal. (Mexico). This acquisition allowed the company to pursue its strategy of expanding into high-growth regions such as Central and Latin America. Supported by TOMRA Recycling’s advanced sorting machines, which effectively sort incoming PET bottles and PET flakes, the expansion of line two in Indorama Ventures EcoMex was concluded this year.

Indorama Ventures entered the recycling business in 2011 and operates production facilities that transform post-consumer PET bottles into flakes, rPET resins and recycled polyester yarns.

Shankar Srinivasan, CEO of Indorama’s Recycling Vertical, said: "Our close, highly personal relationship with TOMRA has been key to the selection of the equipment and technology, as well as the service they provided. They have worked seamlessly with us, in person and online, responding in a timely manner to meet our requirements.”. 

Indorama and TOMRA share three main objectives: consolidating the production line, increasing the quality and speed of production, and reducing costs. To do so, Indorama has chosen TOMRA’s sensor-based sorting machines to effectively sort the infeed material by color and material.

In a first step, two AUTOSORT units pre-sort incoming PET bottles obtained from landfills and collection centres primarily from central and western Mexico. The pre-sort includes one positive and one negative sort plus a recirculation process for the false rejects from the first two machines.

Presorted materials are then washed and shredded before the respective PET flakes are further sorted and purified by two AUTOSORT FLAKE units.

Julio Barrientos, Recycling Sales Manager in Mexico at TOMRA, added: "AUTOSORT is focused on segregating waste materials based on customer requirements. The equipment is programmed according to the required purity quality needs. The machine's high-frequency and high-speed cameras, metal detector and infrared technology determine contaminants and tonalities in order to achieve the highest degrees of purity."

The collaboration of TOMRA and Indorama proves to be a promising one in terms of advancing the recycling sector in Mexico.  With both companies having high standards in operations, services and products, the recycling activity and innovation in this sector are greatly supported and strengthened.